03.13.09Peter Bosshard, Policy Director, International Rivers

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Just like developers and contractors, affected people need enforceable rights in dam projects. The public interest in cost effectiveness and environmental protection must be safeguarded by clear standards. Yet the dam industry is currently trying to roll back rights and standards that have been established over the past 20 years.

For decades, dam-affected communities, tax-payers and consumers were asked to trust the voluntary commitments and good intentions of project developers. This approach frequently resulted in broken promises, environmental degradation, corruption, cost overruns and conflict.

In response to development disasters such as the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada), Three Gorges and Yacyreta dams, many financiers and governments set up or strengthened clear rules and standards. They recognized the rights of affected people to information, participation and fair compensation, tightened procurement rules, and created ecological no-go zones.

A rights-based approach…

The independent World Commission on Dams (WCD) strongly embraced a rights-based approach to dam building. The Commission's report found in 2000 that "an approach based on the recognition of rights and assessment of risks can lay the basis for greatly improved and significantly more legitimate decision-making on water and energy development." The WCD report empowered affected communities to be not just passive beneficiaries or victims of development projects, but actors at the negotiating table.

Non-governmental organizations initiated dialogue processes in many countries to adapt the WCD recommendations to the national contexts. The UN Environment Programme carried out its own follow-up program to the Commission in 2001-2006. Yet the dam industry was never prepared to support the WCD's rights-based approach.

Together with several governments, financial institutions and conservation organizations, the International Hydropower Association in 2007 created the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum (HSAF) to come up with a new approach. The official goal of this forum is to "develop a broadly endorsed sustainability assessment tool to measure and guide performance in the hydropower sector" by the end of 2009.

HSAF is preparing a new Sustainability Assessment Protocol with guidelines on more than 80 aspects of dam projects. Each aspect will be elaborated through a list of criteria. HSAF proposes that dams be scored according to these criteria in order to decide whether or not projects can be considered sustainable. The dam industry hopes that it will be able to attract public subsidies and carbon credits for dams which pass an HSAF score card.

…to be replaced by consultant-speak?

The interim document which the HSAF released for consultation in January espouses a perspective which is very different from the WCD's rights-based approach. If adopted, the new approach would represent a huge setback in international development policy.

The HSAF document doesn't identify any minimum standards or requirements that dams must fulfill in order to be considered sustainable. It instead reflects a view that all project impacts can be handled and mitigated through a host of consultants' reports and management plans. The following examples illustrate this approach:

• The HSAF's draft document does not require that dam developers comply with national law, international human rights norms, and international conventions on issues such as transboundary rivers. It instead proposes to score developers' "degree of conformance" with relevant international norms.

• The document does not recognize indigenous peoples' right to free, prior, informed consent about projects that affect their lives. It simply proposes assessing whether dam developers "understand the legal rights as embedded in national and international law."

• The document does not recognize the right of affected people to have access to information about projects, but instead proposes measuring the "quality of the project communication strategy."

• The document does not require any land-based com¬pensation for dam-affected people. Instead it proposes to measure the "degree of change in living standard of directly affected stakeholders" and the "level of com¬pliance with resettlement legislation and standards requirement" (without identifying any standards).

• The HSAF document does not prescribe international competitive bidding for dam contracts, which is a standard requirement to discourage corruption in large projects. It merely proposes measuring criteria such as the "quality of the bidding documents, including addressing anti-bribery issues."

• Instead of defining labor rights (such as the right to unionize) in dam construction, the draft document proposes scoring attributes such as the "quality of the labor management system."

• The HSAF document does not respect any no-go areas for dam building such as national parks or World Heritage Sites. It instead proposes measuring the "quality of plans to manage for biodiversity and conservation objectives" and the "degree to which biodiversity and habitat manage¬ment plan is likely to achieve objectives."

• The document fails to consider a basin-wide approach to the planning, assessment and development of hydropower projects, and fails to deal with the cumulative social and environmental impacts of such projects.

Excluded from the negotiating table

The process through which the new Sustainability Assessment Protocol is being prepared illustrates how the dam industry disenfranchises affected people. While all interested groups were invited to participate in the World Commission on Dams process from the beginning, the HSAF is a self-selected group. Dam-affected people and advocacy groups are not represented at the negotiating table. The Forum started a belated consultation process in January, half-way through the HSAF process. It is now trying to reach out to NGOs and other critical voices, but at a late stage and with a minimal budget for consultations.

"The dam industry is looking for NGOs' endorsement for what they have already framed as a policy document," comments Ali Askouri, an activist from the area affected by the Merowe Dam in Sudan.

In conclusion, the HSAF's approach ignores the hard lessons of decades of development disasters. Mitigation plans, consultant reports and scorecards cannot replace minimum standards and enforceable rights. Trying to do so will not find the broad endorsement that the dam industry is currently seeking.

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Reader's Comments

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Bruce Cavender 3.17.09

It seems to me that the Supreme Court set the tone for this in its Kelo v New London decision. Citizens' basic rights are now secondary to govt economic wind direction. Our govt has lost its way over the last 30 years and has taken a self important life unto its own. Having finally escaped 11 years working in the permitting business, I am very happy to have retired and left such a largely wasteful process behind forever. It's time for the Right and the Left to cooperate and get the job done before we are all left sitting coldly in the dark. Best of luck to you! Bruce (Disclosure: Even as an energy patch investor (hydro included)... I would like to see Kelo rescinded. It's just the right thing to do.)

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